GPT-5 Nano vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507
GPT-5 Nano comes out ahead, 70 to 60 and 49 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
- Our pick
OpenAIGPT-5 Nano
70/100- ECI139.3
- Price$0.05 / $0.40
- Context400K
ByteDance SeedSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct
60/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context524K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507
49/100- ECI137.3
- Price$0.10 / $0.30
- Context262K
GPT-5 Nano is our pick
GPT-5 Nano is the better all-round choice, scoring 70/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60) and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 (49). It leads on capability and inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
- CapabilityGPT-5 NanoShared benchmarks: GPT-5 Nano 75.3% · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5% · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 58.9%
- Lowest priceGPT-5 NanoGPT-5 Nano $0.138 · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 $0.15 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
- Longest contextSeed-OSS-36B-InstructSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · GPT-5 Nano 400,000 · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 262,144 tokens
- Widest inputsGPT-5 NanoGPT-5 Nano: Text, Images · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507: Text
- Self-hostingSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507Publishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | GPT-5 Nano | Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct | Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityShared benchmarks | 67% | 75 | 70 | 59 |
| Inputs & features | 20% | 70 | 35 | 25 |
| Context window | 13% | 44 | 49 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 70/100 | 60/100 | 49/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | GPT-5 NanoOpenAI | Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed | Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507Alibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 139.3 (best) | — | 137.3 |
| ECI rank | #116 of 165 (best) | — | #124 of 165 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 69.4% | 71.5% (best) | 55.6% |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | 20.0% | — | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 81.1% (best) | 67.5% | 62.2% |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | 11.7% | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.05 (best) | — | $0.10 |
| Output | $0.40 | — | $0.30 (best) |
| Cached input | $0.005 | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.138 (best) | — | $0.15 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | — | Same rate |
| Price source | Official OpenAI API | — | Median of 12 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 400,000 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 128,000 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) | 16,384 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yesminimal · low · medium · high | Yes | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | OpenApache 2.0 | OpenApache 2.0 |
| API model ID | gpt-5-nano | — | — |
| API providers | 30 (best) | — | 14 |
| Released | Aug 7, 2025 | Aug 20, 2025 | Jul 28, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | May 30, 2024 | Jul 2024 | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- GPT-5 Nano$1.30
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
- Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507$1.60
Which should you choose?
Which is better: GPT-5 Nano, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507?
GPT-5 Nano is the better all-round choice, scoring 70/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60) and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 (49). It leads on capability and inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Nano, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507?
GPT-5 Nano is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 costs $0.10 input / $0.30 output per million tokens (median across 12 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.138 per million tokens for GPT-5 Nano versus $0.15 for Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 (1.1× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025): GPT-5 Nano 75.3%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5% and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 58.9%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 71.5%, GPT-5 Nano 69.4%, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 55.6%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — GPT-5 Nano 81.1%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 67.5%, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 62.2%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for GPT-5 Nano, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, GPT-5 Nano leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has the largest context window at 524,288 tokens, against 400,000 for GPT-5 Nano and 262,144 for Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507. Maximum output per response: GPT-5 Nano up to 128,000, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
GPT-5 Nano accepts text and images; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text; Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 accepts text. GPT-5 Nano handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; GPT-5 Nano is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct is the newest, released Aug 20, 2025. GPT-5 Nano came out Aug 7, 2025; Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 came out Jul 28, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: GPT-5 Nano May 30, 2024, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
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